Can You Color Hair With It Being Clean

I of the best and easiest ways to testify off your unique sense of fashion is by coloring your hair. Or, maybe y'all're like me and simply bore hands with your dazzler choices. Either style, it's the kind of pick-me-up that is initially exhilarating simply tin easily get stressful AF if y'all aren't prepared for the maintenance that comes subsequently. Between highlights, dyes, single process, and double process color, there are then many options out there for getting your hair only the mode you want it. Only even in one case you determine on what y'all want, y'all still don't always know what you're getting yourself into, whether information technology exist at the salon or at home.

For instance, should yous wash your hair before you dye information technology? Should you warn your friends and family unit that your appearance is about to modify dramatically? (For the tape, the answer to both is no.) Here are 10 things no one volition ever tell you about coloring your hair—merely should know.

Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we merely feature products we call back yous'll love as much as nosotros practise. Sally Beauty is a STYLECASTER sponsor, however, all products in this article were independently selected by our editors. Please notation that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.

one. When to Get a Keratin Treatment

Sally Beauty.

If you're getting a keratin handling, it'due south best to get information technology when y'all colour your hair. Whether it'south directly subsequently or within a couple of days, an at-home keratin treatment helps to seal in the color and prevent backlog harm from bleach and other dye irritants.

2. Tricky, Catchy Multidimensional Colour

Sally Dazzler.

Multidimensional color tin can flim-flam the middle into thinking there's more than volume, so don't exist afraid to have fun with different tones; particularly if you have finer strands. If you expect closely at photos of almost celebrities, their hair isn't but i shade: Universal hair-crushes like Miranda Kerr and Julianne Hough have multi-tonal dye jobs, which highlight their faces and give the illusion of more move and body. For an at-home color option, check out the formula above (note: for blonde and platinum hair, we recommended seeing a professional for a consultation.)

3. You Need More Than Simply Shampoo

Rahua.

Shampoo isn't the only thing you lot need to buy to protect your colour. Yep, yous should be using colour-treated shampoo and conditioner formulated specifically for your hair color, but you should also be using a color-protecting styling spray and a UV spray . Harmful UV rays can fade the color of your hair, making salon trips more than and more than necessary.

4. Use At-Habitation Embrace Up

Color Wow.

Whether you lot get a kit for root impact-ups or simply employ a touch on-up pen, stretch the corporeality of time betwixt salon visits with a quick fix of your own. This best-selling powder brushes into roots to camouflage growth–and is even sweat-proof.

5. Employ Moisturizer and Petroleum Jelly

Vaseline.

Dripping dye onto your pare is a practiced wait for no one. Utilise your regular moisturizer on your face, then utilize a thin layer of petroleum jelly around your hairline before coloring—this manner, your skin is protected, and yous'll be able to wipe off the color immediately once yous're done.

half-dozen. Information technology's OK to Mess Upward

Colour Oops.

Not that we recommend messing upwards, but it's comforting to know that with products like Color Oops, your hair color catastrophe tin can be washed out completely if admittedly necessary.

7. No Ammonia, Coal Tar, and Pb Acetate

Revlon.

There is a slew of gnarly ingredients that can hide in at-home hair color products, so you should keep an eye out for all of them. Ingredients like ammonia (which can completely dry out and fry your hair) and lead acetate (uh, lead poisoning?) should exist avoided like the plague. If possible, attempt to use the well-nigh natural hair color you lot can find, and talk with your colorist virtually which products they're using.

8. Single vs. Double-Process Color

50'Oreal.

A unmarried process is exactly similar what it sounds similar: applying ane color to the hair at ane time. A double process requires bleaching out the pilus—the first procedure—and then toning the color—the second process—to get the desired outcome. Double processing takes longer and is harsher on your hair, so you lot should be enlightened of that going into it.

9. Going Darker Is Less Damaging

Clairol.

Going lighter means stripping pilus of some colour and moisture while going darker means depositing color into your pilus. It's the basic laws of subtraction and addition: Adding color is less damaging; removing your color is more damaging.

10. Go out Your Pilus Dirty Before Yous Start

pH Plex.

Color not just holds better to muddied hair—clean hair can exist too glace—but if yous wash your hair earlier coloring, the dye or bleach may fire your scalp because information technology won't have the natural oils to protect it. If you have to get in with clean hair, attempt adding a little hair oil to your scalp to assistance create a bulwark confronting bleach irritation or a scalp-protecting formula .

A version of this article was originally published in May 2015.